Media Statement
MONDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2005
SOFTWARE FAILURE A MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR HEADACHE FOR NZ BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT
Most developed software fails to satisfy clients and loses New Zealand businesses and government tens of millions of
dollars every year.
Chris Gray, Borland Software Australian and New Zealand Sales Director, says three recent independent research projects
show endemic problems in the success, value and alignment of software to business needs.
Mr Gray said no-one in the local IT community would be surprised US-based STANDISH group’s latest report showed that two
thirds of all software development projects fail.
“Equally alarming was a recent report from US research group, NIST, putting the related dollar loss at $US60 billion
annually. In New Zealand my estimate is the figure would run to tens of millions of dollars a year.”
Mr Gray said a third report by the BPM Forum of 226 US IT Professionals showed that 70 per cent of organisations
supported redundant or irrelevant software at significant cost to their businesses. “Again, the situation would be the
same, or similar, here and apply equally to off-the shelf-packaged and custom-built software,” he said.
Today’s launch of Borland’s new Core SDP software package aimed to align business, IT and operations during software
development, and automate process steps where possible to increase efficiency, Mr Gray said.
“In short, what Core SDP does, and this is a first in the IT world, is ensure that everyone involved sings from the same
song sheet, every step of the way. Everyone is kept in the loop ending in an across-the-board ownership of the final
product as presented to the client,” Mr Gray said.
ENDS